new month new energy!
new semester reset!
restart everything - it’s a new season and it’s time for a clean start.
this kind of thinking is a siren call. it beckons us from the rocks - it seems like a way out of the fog! a way through what feels hard and ineffective and challenging into something clearer, more in control.
but think about the language. if you start over, if you restart, if you reset, you go back to the beginning. you start from square one. you reconsider everything. nothing is off the table. you’re trying something new, you’re a beginner, you’re rebuilding because what you were doing wasn’t working.
we often want a reset so we don’t have to do too much digging into what wasn’t working. if you just say “start over”, you don’t have to really sit with what happened before, you just have to focus on what is coming next. you get to put all your energy into the new system that you’re trying, you flipped the page, and now it’s fresh and new and hopeful.
of course we want that! of course that feels good! who wouldn’t sacrifice some feeling of mastery, who wouldn’t retell the story to have all that fresh, new year new person energy.
but if we constantly reset, if we restart frequently, we end up repeating a lot. if you throw out all your progress because you have a better plan, the last plan, now - then you never give yourself credit for what you’ve tried. you don’t recognize what has worked before, the skills you built along the way. even if you don’t literally throw work away, you do tell yourself that you have to start over in order to move forward. you have to do something drastic in order to unblock.
what if you thought about it as a recommitting instead?
you’re not restarting your writing practice, you’re recommitting to it. you’re not resetting your meditation habit, you’re recommitting to it. you’re not starting from ground zero with your scheduling, you’re recommitting to rules, like a hard off time, or weekends with family.
give yourself some credit - you’re making a change, you might be making some changes or trying something new, but it’s part of the life cycle. you don’t have to restart because you failed, but you’re recommitting because things have changed, you have changed, and you need to try something different, or new.
so if you’re feeling that itch to make some big moves, start some new routines, try something you haven’t tried, or haven’t tried in a while - try talking about it to yourself as a recommitment. you’re recommitting to your goal of finishing, to your routines that worked in times like this, you’re recommitting to the scholar and human that shows up, focused and ready, as well as rested and grounded.
it might look exactly the same, but if you call it a restart, you send yourself backwards in order to move forward.
it you call it a recommitment, you get to make a change, get that fresh energy, but you don’t have to go backward to do it. you can keep moving forward.